We must expect everything and fear everything from time and from men.

It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves.

Glory fills the world with virtue, and, like a beneficent sun, covers the whole earth with flowers and with fruits.

Is it against justice or reason to love ourselves? And why is self-love always a vice?

Those who can bear all can dare all.

It is good to be firm by temperament and pliant by reflection.

Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.